Buddhism and Sufism are two religions that are unique from other
practices since they are not structured like other major
religions such as Christianity and Islam. Instead, these two
faiths differ in that Buddhism is more of a philosophy than a
religion and concentrates on living life based on moral code and
ethics. In Buddhism, there is no almighty God and worship of a
supernatural being. Also, in Buddhism there is no belief of a
Judgment Day but rather, emphasis is placed on this doctrine of
rebirth, called Samsara, regarded simply as “the perpetual
cycles of existence or endless rounds of rebirth among the six
realms of existence” (buddhanet.net) that Buddhists believe in.
Sufism is distinctive, as well, since it is considered more of a
mystical practice which places importance on one’s connection
with God and seeking the Divine through spiritual practices. In
both religions, spirituality and meditation play a major role
but the purpose or ultimate goals of each religion are
dissimilar. For, in Buddhism spirituality and meditation are
used as a tool to assist one in seeking enlightenment or
“liberation” from Samsara which is achieved when one attains the
level of Nirvana, which is “virtual exhaustion of karma,
habitual traces, defilements, and delusions” (buddhanet.net).

Rather, Sufism utilizes the practice of meditation and
spirituality in their ultimate goal to become one and unite with
God, in which the heart and the power of love plays a
significant part of the Spiritual Journey by acting as a medium
to connect one with the Divine.

Buddhism has its origins about 2500 years ago when Siddhartha
Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha, became “awakened” or
enlightened and began teaching the principles of Buddhism,
called the Dhamma or “Truth”, to his disciples or students. In
his teachings, he mentioned “to lead a moral life, be mindful
and aware of thoughts and actions, and to develop understanding
and wisdom” (buddhanet.net) which could be accomplished by
acknowledging what is known as the Four Noble Truths and
embarking upon the Noble Eightfold Path.

The Buddha was able to follow what is called the “Middle Way”
meaning that the “extremes of both hedonism and asceticism are
to be avoided and that the middle course should be followed as
the ideal” (Takakusu 22). Buddhist doctrine rests on the idea of
knowing and perceiving reality as it is, meaning that one should
look at life as it is without making any judgments or excuses
and conducting one’s life according to this knowledge. The
Buddha taught that life is made up of both pleasures and
hardships, “but one must not be discouraged when hardship comes,
or lose oneself in rapture of joy when pleasure comes” (Takakusu
22). That is what Buddhists mean by the” Middle Path”.

The idea of suffering plays a critical role in Buddhist
tradition, and Buddhist dharma teaches one how to cope with
suffering and how to still be able to live a noble life. What
the Four Noble Truths refer to are “1) that life consists
entirely of suffering 2) that suffering has causes 3) that the
causes of suffering can be extinguished 4) that there exists a
way to extinguish the causes” (Takakusu 26). These are the basis
or foundations of Buddhist teaching and Buddhist believe that
“all those who are seeking Enlightenment must understand the
Fourfold Noble Truth” and that those who do not understand this
“will wander about interminably in the bewildering maze of
life’s illusions” (Kyokai 39). Buddhists preach to keep these
truths in mind for the world is full of suffering, and that
anyone wishing to escape this suffering must “sever the ties of
worldly passion which is the sole cause of suffering” (Kyokai
39). In order to live such a life free of worldly desires and
suffering can only come through enlightenment and this
enlightenment can be achieved through the discipline of the
Noble Eightfold Path.

What this path calls for Buddhists to practice are eight things,
which when all achieved, will lead to enlightenment or Nirvana.
These eight aspects consists of “Right View (by which to see the
real state of all things), Right Thought, Right Speech, Right
Action, Right Mindfulness, Right Endeavor, Right Livelihood, and
Right Concentration” (Takakusu 26). So, in essence, the
spiritual journey of a Buddhist begins when one learns to
recognize the real state of things, Right View. The following
three practices of Right Thought, Right Speech, and Right Action
can be seen as a method for a Buddhist to transform his or her
human character by what he or she thinks, says, and behaves
according to. After a Buddhist has changed their character,
next, the teachings of Right Mindfulness, Right Endeavor, and
Right Livelihood can be interpreted as the acts necessary to be
taken to transform or change the elements of a Buddhist’s life.
Living with mindfulness, with right effort, and a simplistic
lifestyle will then prepare the Buddhist even further along the
path to Enlightenment until Right Concentration, which is “the
motive power to carry one through all the worlds—this world of
desire, the heaven of bodily beings, the higher heaven of
formless beings and holy beings” (Takakusu 26) will finally
bring you to the state of Nirvana or the highest enlightenment,
also known as the Buddhahood. So, to summarize “the Eightfold
Way may be regarded as the practical ethics of Buddhism for the
purpose of building up the human character and improving it, but
at the same time it is the way for attaining the highest
enlightenment” (Takakusu 27).

Meditation plays a crucial role in the pursuit of the Eightfold
Path in that it assists Buddhists in attaining each of these
eight “rights”. Thich Nhat Hanh, in his book The Miracle of
Mindfulness, discusses various meditative practices in the
Buddhist tradition and shows the significance of these
meditations and how they relate to the Buddhist beliefs of
mindfulness, living in the moment, being awakened, unity, and
peace. For instance, when Hanh explains about the typical
routine of washing the dishes, he points towards three of the
eightfold truths pertaining to Right View, Right Mindfulness,
and Right Concentration. He writes that, “While washing the
dishes one should only be washing the dishes, which means that
while washing the dishes one should be completely aware of the
fact that one is washing the dishes” (Hanh 3). This can be
compared to what Right View and Right Mindfulness explains.
Then, he states, “the fact that I am standing there and washing
these bowls is a wondrous reality…completely myself, following
my breath, conscious of my presence, and conscious of my
thoughts and actions. There is no way I can be tossed around
mindlessly” (Hanh 4). This refers to Right Concentration, or the
point when nothing comes between you and what you are doing,
when one’s mind is pure and clean, unaffected by the ego’s or
worldly desires, and at which point thus, true understanding is
reached. Hanh explains that “we practice mindfulness in order to
build up concentration…mindfulness itself is the life of
awareness: the presence of mindfulness means the presence of
life…Mindfulness enables us to live” (Hanh 15). To have a pure,
clean, open mind plays a pivotal role in the journey towards
Enlightenment for “an unenlightened life rises from a mind that
is bewildered by its own world of delusion” (Kyokai 51). The
mind is “the master of every situation…therefore, all things are
primarily controlled and ruled by the mind, and are created up
by the mind” (Kyokai 51). So, a man must speak and act with a
good, clear mind in order to bring an end to one’s suffering and
in order to get proper enlightenment. Meditation, thus, is used
by Buddhists to practice harnessing one’s control over the mind
and allowing it to become clear, open, and void of any delusions
for it allows one to concentrate and focus the mind’s thoughts.
Hanh writes of meditation saying that, “sitting in meditation is
nourishment for your spirit and nourishment for your body…our
bodies obtain harmony, feel lighter, and are more at peace…once
you are able to quiet your mind, once your feelings and thoughts
no longer disturb you… your mind will take hold of mind in a
direct and wondrous way which no longer differentiates between
subject and object” (Hanh 42). Thus, meditation is used by
Buddhists along the spiritual journey to cleanse and purify
one’s mind in order for the person to be ready for
enlightenment.

So, in summary, Buddhism is based on a certain way of living and
by following a code of ethics and morals, through which
enlightenment is achieved.

Moving now to the topic of Sufism, it is unlike Buddhism in that
whereas Buddhists do not believe in a divine being, God is at
the center of Sufi faith and in which the heart rather than the
mind, plays a critical role in a Sufi’s spiritual journey.

The practice of Sufism can be defined as being the “inner,
esoteric, mystical, or purely spiritual dimension of the
religion of Islam” (www.uga.edu).
It is often referred to as “Islamic mysticism” and the essence
or root of Sufi practice is complete surrendering towards God.
Sufis, or practitioners of the Sufism, see themselves to be on a
spiritual journey towards God, and this path is known as Tariqah
in Arabic. While all Muslims believe to be on a pathway to God
and that one will become close to God in Paradise after death,
Sufis recognize that it is possible to attain this closeness and
connection with God while one is alive. They assert that the
attainment of knowledge of the Divine through experience and
intimacy with God is the sole purpose of creation. In a
particular Hadith Qudsi, or sayings of Prophet Muhammad
(P.B.U.H), Sufis reference that God states “I was a hidden
treasure and I loved that I be known, so I created the creation
in order to be known.” Hence, for Sufis, there is a continuous
attraction on their hearts exerted by God, attracting them and
pulling them closer towards God. They experience a joyous
ecstasy of being drawn to the Divine “Beloved” and emphasize
“the continual remembrance of God, intention, integrity,
generosity, and respect for all life” (www.sufism.org).
The “inner relationship of lover and Beloved is the core of the
Sufi path…and God reveals Himself within the hearts of those who
love him” (Vaughan-Lee 1). So, Sufis believe that through love,
“the seeker is taken to God” and embarks upon the spiritual
journey in which separation from God turns into union and a
state of oneness with God.

Jalal al-Din Rumi, founder of the Mevlevi Order of Sufis, was
one of the most influential Sufis of his time and his mystical
poetry is widely recognized throughout the world. Contained in
his poetic prose are tales of love, intoxication, life and
death, realization, and passion. This leads to several questions
which arise such as “Why does Love dominate much of Rumi’s
poetry?”and “What does Love as described by Rumi really mean?”.
In the end though, the main question to ponder is “What is the
significance of love?”

It seems as though Rumi is talking about “Love” in a higher
regard than just the emotional aspect of love that one senses
and feels. Rumi is addressing love in terms of a spiritual
sense. His poetry, though it addresses things such as love for
ordinary things found in Nature, in the end, seems to all lead
to something bigger which is the ecstatic love of the soul
seeking to be one with the Divine God. Rumi utilizes the
experience that we as humans possess in terms of emotions when
in love as a way to point toward the spiritual union and
relationship of the soul with God. Thus, he shows that the power
of love that we feel in our human relations reflects the
intensity of our soul’s love for God as well. But on a deeper
note, Rumi is expressing the belief that love is the key to
spiritual experience, much moreso than the mind or ego which
acts as a barrier between the real and false self and hinders
true understanding.

In Islamic doctrine, God is the source of all life, and whose
essence cannot be described or compared to anything, but “who
can be known through the spiritual qualities that are manifest
in the world and in the human heart.” To Rumi and other Sufis, a
person who is unenlightened is “faithless” and an individual who
lives in slavery to the false self, or ego, and to the desires
of the material world. The spiritual practices which Sufis such
as Rumi performed were aimed at “transforming the compulsiveness
of the false self and attaining Islam or ‘Submission’ to a
higher order of reality.” Without submission, the real self
would be concealed and enslaved to the false self, regarded as
the ego. Thus, “the enslaved ego is cut off from the heart, the
chief organ for perceiving reality, and cannot receive the
spiritual guidance and nourishment which the heart provides.”
This displays the power and purpose of the heart in terms of
spiritual guidance. It shows that if the heart is trapped or
dominated by the ego, then experience and understanding cannot
be truly attained for it is being tainted by the thoughts of the
ego. It is only when this enslavement is overcome that the
realization is made that “the self is a reflection of the
Divine, [and that] God is the Beloved or Friend, the
transpersonal identity” (www.sufism.org)
for love of God leads to the lover forgetting him or herself and
immersing themselves in the love and favors of the Beloved.

For Sufis, you only begin to discover who you really are when
you go beyond yourself. The real self is something much larger
and different in quality than the ego, which is primarily
concerned with success, popularity, or perceiving to look like
something which one is not. So, the reason that love can be such
a force is because, in love, the ego is no longer in control, or
at the center. For instance, when a person feels such an
affection or admiration towards someone or something else, then
that thing or person becomes far more important than you
yourself. So love transforms a person and forces one to go
beyond oneself. When one starts to experience the depth in one’s
lives, no longer identifying with the ego, that is the opening
or point at which one discovers who and what we really are and
true understanding and experience is reached.
It is the longing of the heart which opens up a person and
awakens them to the pain of separation. This can be seen through
the relationship between Rumi and his teacher Shams Tabrizi. It
was predicted by the teacher of Tabrizi, Kamal Jundi, that Shams
was to meet a person who would become his ‘tongue’ or alter-ego,
referring to Rumi. It was in his counterpart, Rumi, that Shams
was able to manifest his gift of divine wisdom as he was able to
transfer his knowledge and wisdom into Rumi in a rather
mysterious and startling manner (shamsitabriz.net). Rumi has
mentioned in his book Divan-e-Shams that it was not him but
Shams talking through him in his poetry (shamsitabriz.net).
Later, Rumi would come to the realization that he and Shams were
one and that Shams lived within Rumi himself. This phenomenon of
the transfer of souls has never been witnessed before and what
makes the tale of these two personalities so unique. This unique
relationship is best expressed through the words of Gulpinarli
that, "Rumi was like a purely clean lamp, where the oil was
poured in the holder and a wick placed therein, ready to be lit;
and Shams was the spark to set it afire" (shamsitabriz.net).
When Tabrizi suddenly disappeared one night, it was this feeling
of longing in Rumi’s heart which transformed Rumi and it was at
this point when Rumi began chanting lines of poetry and falling
into ecstatic and intoxicated forms of love towards Shams and
the Beloved. Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee, in her book entitled Sufism:
The Transformation of the Heart, writes that “the glance of the
Beloved awakens the memory of the soul… the memory of this union
makes us aware that we are now separate from the One we love,
and so ignites the fire of longing. The exile remembers his real
Home and begins the long and lonely journey back to the Beloved”
(31). So, once again, the power and significance of the heart
and love can be seen, which shows that it is not only what leads
to realization and experience once the ego is destroyed and
replaced by love, but also that this feeling of yearning or
longing awakens one to the pain of separation and brings a
person back on the path to seek their Beloved.

Now, let us see what Rumi, in his poetry wrote about the topic
of love and intoxication. From the collection of Rumi’s poetry,
translated by Nevit Ergin, in his book entitled The Forbidden
Rumi, there is a poem by Rumi called “Love is its Own Proof” in
which is contained the following stanza:
If you fall in love, Your love is your proof and that’s enough.
If you’re not in love, what good is proof?

This poem explains how Rumi views love as it being the only
thing one needs, and that proof is not needed. Earlier in the
poem, Rumi mentions a person crying and looking for a remedy or
cure, and that one should seek out what he or she is longing for
or desires. The next stanza describes a lost soul and a person
riddled in sorrow and he advises that person to go try to find
his lost soul, which the power of love can do. In the third
stanza, Rumi explains that by just smelling a loaf of bread
reveals everything you need to know about the bread. He is
making the contrast that in a similar way, just as all is
revealed about the bread by smelling it, similarly, love of the
Divine will reveal to you true understanding about the Divine as
it will cause you to immerse yourself in this love and allows
for such a bond and connection to be formed. This again
reiterates the power of Love as being the only thing a person
needs when lost or saddened or looking to find someone whether
it be someone searching for his or her soul, or trying to seek
out the Divine. This portrays the message that by just following
your heart, you will reach your destination and find what you
have been seeking for.

Even in forms of meditation, the heart acts as a symbol and type
of connection between Sufis and the Divine. In the Mevlevi
tradition, the ceremony of the whirling dance, or the Sema,
performed by dervishes (followers of Rumi) is very unique and
mesmerizing to witness. From the view of an onlooker or outsider
who does not know the significance and meaning behind this
ceremony, it would seem rather strange and absurd to them.
However, what these dervishes perform in these rituals holds
great importance, for Rumi, who was the founder of the Mevlevi
Order of Sufis, was the first to perform this whirling dance out
of a sign of devotion and remembrance (Zikr) for Allah. This
dance can be regarded as a state of meditation since the
dervishes, as they perform the turn, start chanting the name of
God, and fall into a trancelike state, completely ignoring
everything around them, and being in the moment, caught up in
their quest to find deeper meaning and understanding through
this dance. Everything that the dervishes perform during the
Sema has a meaning: the turn, the costume they wear, the rose,
even the music. The tall hat they wear represents “the tombstone
of the ego”, the black cloth they take off is the “burial
shroud”, and the white cloth represents “the shroud of the ego”
which dies as they perform the turn. The word ‘dervish’ means
“doorway”, so the Sema is performed by these dervishes as they
look to reach that ‘doorway’ to God or to enlightenment. The
music played during the ceremony of the flute is another
symbolic instrument, as the sounds of the flute being played
emits a wonderful melody, which in itself, helps the dervishes
during their spiritual and meditative practice, as it creates
certain emotions and feelings. When the dervish takes off the
black cloth, it signifies the Sufi’s desire to remove and
abandon one’s ego and need for material possessions, and keep
one’s focus on God alone. Each movement made during the turn
represents something. As the dervishes whirl, always from right
to left, the Dervishes hold their hands in a unique position.
The right hand is lifted palm-out towards the sky whereas the
left hand is palm down towards the ground. The right hand is
palm up towards God while the left hand (palm down) represents
the Earth. So, this dance can be analyzed as the dervishes
trying to find the center or connection between the two realms:
one being the spiritual realm and the other is the physical
realm and in the center or what connects the two realms is the
heart or simply devout love for the Beloved/Divine.

In conclusion, the heart and its power of Love is the key or
essence both in meditative practices and in the stages of a
Sufi’s spiritual journey because it allows one to reveal their
true self (which is trapped by one’s ego), and is the key for
spiritual guidance and experience for when one is in love, they
completely forget themselves and rather, become immersed in the
love of their Beloved.
Having now examined both the Buddhist faith and Sufi tradition,
it is apparent that spirituality and meditation play pivotal
roles in each religion but for different purposes. Buddhists
follow a moral and ethical code of conduct in their life and use
meditation in order to prepare themselves for true understanding
and enlightenment by purifying the mind and perfecting the
Eightfold Path. Whereas, on the contrary, Sufism delves into
connecting oneself with God, in which meditation is used for the
purpose of harnessing the power of the heart and using it as a
medium to connect the physical, material realm with the
supernatural realm of the Divine.